Advocates Push Lawmakers For Water Quality Funding

Rebekah Weber, the lakekeeper at Conservation Law Foundation, says it isn’t just water quality advocates that are demanding real action on funding in 2017. A coalition that includes the Vermont Farm Bureau, Vermont Mayors Coalition, Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility and numerous environmentalist groups sent a letter to lawmakers last week, asking them to pass a per-parcel fee this year. Under their proposal, that fee would go into effect in 2019, when interim water-quality funding sources are scheduled to expire, if lawmakers haven’t come up with an alternative financing plan in the meantime.

“We need to have a backstop,” Weber says. “We’ve had working groups, we’ve had reports before, and so without having a backstop, we’re really not going to be happy this session.”

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